


Between A Rock And A Hard Place

by leiascully



Series: All The Choices We've Made [4]
Category: The X-Files
Genre: Alien Abduction, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Mytharc (X-Files), The X-Files Revival
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-23
Updated: 2018-09-26
Packaged: 2019-07-15 20:39:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 12,328
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16070891
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leiascully/pseuds/leiascully
Summary: Tad O'Malley makes Mulder and Scully an offer they can't refuse.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Timeline: Alternate Season 10 (10.01)  
> A/N: This replaces "My Struggle" in the "All The Choices We've Made" universe, which includes Visitor and Resident.  
> Disclaimer: _The X-Files_ and all related characters are the property of Chris Carter, 1013 Productions, and Fox Studios. No profit is made from this work and no infringement is intended.

Sunlight slants in through the windows, glinting off the photo on Mulder's desk, gilding the cheap frame. He pushes back from his computer. It's quitting time. He stretches his shoulders and pulls out his phone. 

"See you at home?" he texts to Scully.

"Headed into an autopsy," she texts back. "Home late."

"I'll keep your dinner warm," he texts, and adds a kissy emoji.

Outside, the air is crisp and the leaves are changing. He automatically catalogs the trees as he drives home: yellowing oaks, scarlet maples, bright Bradford pears. It's funny what has stuck with him from a childhood as a Guide. He wonders if he can still tie knots. He parks on the street in front of their place. The wind blows his coat around him as he unlocks the door and slips into the house. Kismet bounds around his feet, begging for a run.

"Okay, buddy," Mulder says, ruffling the dog's ears. "Just let me change." He hangs his coat on the rack and sheds his jacket as he walks upstairs. It still feels as good to wear the suit as it does to get out of it. He drags on shorts and a t-shirt and laces up his sneakers, then clatters back down the stairs to clip Kismet's leash onto his collar. Being outside again raises goosebumps all up and down his arms, but he knows he'll warm up fast. Kismet romps beside him as Mulder jogs. Willow trails its long branches over the path, the fronds waving in the wind like seaweed. He avoids the scattered sweetgum balls and the occasional cone of a magnolia. One is burst open with a bicycle wheel-width imprint through it; red seeds are strewn across the trail like a spatter of blood. 

Maybe some things don't change. He and Scully will never walk into a room without casing it. A splash of scarlet will never not be a blood spatter at first glance. He inhales the sweetness of the magnolia seeds as he jogs by, reconciling reality with instinct. 

He is hot and sweaty when he gets home, and Kismet's tongue lolls. He gets them both ice water and starts peeling sweet potatoes and chopping onions. He smells the ground turkey before tossing it into the Dutch oven. He stills sniffs everything, an instinct from the years they were always on the road and his groceries went bad before he could use them. But this is fine, purchased last weekend, and it sizzles in the oil. He lets it brown and then throws in the sweet potatoes. He doesn't know where the recipe came from, but it's an easy weeknight chili, and he's old enough to be grateful for a healthy option. Now that he sees his doctor more than once a year, he's more mindful of the risks of cholesterol and salt.

He eats in front of the tv, flipping through the channels: the usual mishmash of dreck and aspiration repackaged as inspiration. He pauses when he hears the word "Roswell". It's some kind of talk show, one more tv-handsome man in a tailored suit equipped with high-definition video and the latest buzzwords. It makes him a little sick to watch. Is that what he sounded like to people? He likes to imagine his paranoia is benign. He nailed his 95 theses to the door of the Hoover Building, sure, but it felt different. He ranted into the wind. He accused a faction of the government of manipulating and injuring its own people, but not the White House itself. 

Still, he hears something of himself in Tad O'Malley, a distorted echo like his reflection in the funhouse mirror in the humbug museum in Florida. The man sits there, polished to perfection, and details in his modulated voice all the conspiracies that haunt the American people, from false-flag operations to snakepeople. The hair stands up on the back of Mulder's neck. 

His phone rings. He glances at the screen. It's Skinner. He thumbs acceptance and lifts the phone to his ear.

"Mulder."

"Mulder, it's Skinner." Old habits indeed. "Have you seen Tad O'Malley's show?"

"Watching it right now," Mulder says. "Why?"

"There's a matter he wants investigated. Something he's talked about on his show. He's been putting pressure on the right people for the past few weeks."

"I imagine he knows all the right people," Mulder tells him. "Suit like that? Guaranteed access."

"Mulder...." Skinner pauses. "He's brought them an X-File."

Mulder exhales slowly. "A X-File."

"A girl who's been abducted," Skinner says. "Multiple times, he says. Forced pregnancies. Mysterious surgeries. The whole nine yards. He only wants you." 

"This guy makes me sound like amateur hour," Mulder says. "Real kindergarten conspiracy stuff." 

"I'll take Bigfoot over crisis actors any day," Skinner mutters. "He's asking for you."

"I don't do that anymore," Mulder says. "My reputation recedes. I might as well not have set up that Google alert."

"I know," Skinner says. "That's what I told them. It seems Mr. O'Malley is used to getting his way."

"I'm sure he is," Mulder says.

Skinner hesitates. "Given his access and his audience, playing along is probably your best option."

"I thought we were done with all that," Mulder says. "I'm not a renegade anymore."

"In their mind, you are," Skinner says. "In his mind."

"You can take Spooky out of the basement," Mulder says wryly. 

"I called Scully first," Skinner says. "It went to voicemail."

"She's slicing and dicing," Mulder says absently, watching slick graphics flash on the screen behind Tad O'Malley. "I don't work alone."

"I know you don't," Skinner says. "I can buy you some time to talk it over. A week would be pushing it, but I can hold him off for a few days."

"I appreciate that, Walter," Mulder says.

"Be careful," Skinner says, and hangs up. 

Mulder sets his phone down, turns off the tv, and ruffles Kismet's ears as he goes to shower. The steam doesn't clear his mind, but at least he's not sweaty anymore. He moves carefully through the house, as if he's sore, but it's just the weight of the idea of reclaiming the X-Files bearing down on him, or sneaking up on him, or whatever anthropomorphization would fit. How many years did he chase that phantom? And now, when he and Scully have finally laid the X-Files to rest alongside their own ghosts, here comes a devil to deal with. 

Kismet is still on the couch when he comes down. His tail thumps against the leather of the sofa as he watches Mulder. Mulder pulls a book from the shelf and settles down with his dog. He reads, but he's not paying much attention. All those years, he just wanted to stir people to action, to reveal the truth. He believed it then and he believes it now, after all of it. He and Scully worked to root out the rot in the world. There was a price to pay, but like surgeons, they had to make the hard call: to debride the wound in the country before it went septic and no one could be saved. Tad O'Malley is fomenting revolution, the kind that dredges up the worst in people and turns neighborhoods into war zones, the word truth on his lips and dollar signs in his eyes. Tad O'Malley is asbestos. He's a slow-acting poison in a glossy package.

Surely non-profit prophecy is a nobler cause, but how many other villains believed themselves saviors? A class action suit against Fox Mulder wouldn't fail to unearth some claimants. Ronnie Strickland, just for starters. He adds that to his mental list of things to discuss with his therapist. 

He turns a page and then flips it back. He hasn't understood a word. 

Scully comes in late. He goes to the kitchen when he hears her car, ladles out a bowl of chili and slices avocado over it, and hands it to her as she walks in and shrugs off her coat. She stretches up for a weary kiss, the bowl pressed hot between them.

"You're a lifesaver," she says.

"I owe you," he tells her. "How was the autopsy?"

"Nothing out of the ordinary, thankfully," she says. "I'll let someone else take it from here." She sits down at the table. "I saw Skinner called. What was that about?"

"He's got a case for us, if we want it," Mulder says, slouching into a chair. "Do you want some water? A beer?"

"Water would be nice," she says. "Fizzy, if we have it. Maybe the bubbles will keep me awake." She watches him as he opens the fridge and pulls out a can of Perrier. "A case for both of us, Mulder?"

"Mm," he says, pouring the Perrier into a glass for her. 

"Thank you," she says as he sets the glass on the table. "Mulder, we don't work together anymore. What kind of case is this?"

He settles back into his chair, trying to find words and coming up with silence. It stretches out between them. He would swear that time slows down. Some universal invariant - he's lost time in Bellefleur and gotten it back in DC. Maybe Scully is the proximate cause of the warping of space-time. That's how firmly she plants her feet. Take that, Caesar. 

Scully stops eating and raises an eyebrow.

He sighs. "An X-File."

She sets her spoon down with deliberate precision. He watches a storm blow through behind her eyes, the kind that sets off sirens and rattles the boards over the windows. 

"I told him we'd have to talk about it," Mulder says. 

"Yes, we will," she says. 

"I was going to wait until after you'd eaten." He shrugs. "Skinner said there's a lot of pressure on him to make this happen. I wanted you to hear it from me."

"What's the X-File?" she asks.

"A woman," he says. "She was abducted." 

She looks up at him and sighs. He knows she understands it isn't some ordinary kidnapping. "Do we have a choice?"

"I don't think so," he says slowly. "Not if we want to stay with the Bureau."

"I suspected as much," she says. "Do we stay or do we run?"

"That's what I was going to ask you," he says. 

She shakes her head. "I don't want to live in the shadows anymore. We've made a life here. I won't surrender that."

"That's what I was going to say," he says, and she smiles at him and takes his hand. "I thought we'd have more to discuss."

"We do," she says. "But none of it seems particularly relevant when it's our jobs on the line."

"We've had other jobs," he reminds her. 

"This is home," she says simply. "This is what we do best. And it's still...it's still our best bet to find him."

"I know," he says.

"The woman," Scully asks. "Is she like me?"

He nods. "I think so."

"Then we'll take the case," she says, shoulders squaring. 

"I'll call my therapist," he offers. "Maybe I can go back to twice a week."

She squeezes his hand. "We can do this." It's nearly a question.

"We can," he says. "We've got coping strategies now."

"Some more entertaining than others," she says, her lips quirking in a smile. "In all seriousness, Mulder, I think we need to ask for help."

"Skinner?"

"More than Skinner," she says. "He's had his hands tied in the past. We need more personnel."

"Allies?"

"Colleagues," she says firmly, but he can read the way the corners of her eyes tighten slightly. "New perspectives. New expertise. We may be proficient in Google, but I'm hardly an expert in the way information travels these days."

"Your memes aren't fresh," he agrees solemnly, and she rolls her eyes.

"This is serious."

"I know," he says, running his thumb over her knuckles. "If we follow orders like good little soldiers, maybe we'll get new toys. Is the name Tad O'Malley familiar to you?"

"The conspiracy theorist?" she asks. 

"He's got friends in high places," Mulder tells her.

She makes a noise of disgust. "Of course he does."

Mulder lets go of her hand, stands, and kisses the top of her head. "Finish your dinner. I'm going to take Kismet out one more time."

"I'm going to jump in the shower," she says. "I'll see you in bed."

"Looking forward to it," he says.


	2. Chapter 2

In the morning, Mulder texts Skinner: "We're in." They get a call ten minutes later, while they're lingering over their coffee. 

"You're on speaker," Mulder tells Skinner, putting the phone on the table between them.

"You've been excused from your regular duties today," Skinner says gruffly. "You will meet Mr. O'Malley on Pennsylvania Avenue at 10 a.m. near the National Gallery of Art. He'll provide transportation offsite to meet the subject."

They exchange looks over the table.

"Sounds a little cloak and dagger," Mulder says.

"Mr. O'Malley insists on taking precautions," Skinner says. 

"At least he doesn't seem likely to blow up the car while we're in it," Scully murmurs. 

"Don't judge a talk show host by his cover," Mulder murmurs back.

"Agents?" Skinner says, just a touch of tension in his voice. He is probably being watched. They are always being watched. Pressure comes from the top and Skinner, Atlas-like, has borne the brunt of it so that they could dart between the shadows, bringing light to the darkness.

"We'll be there," Mulder says, and ends the call. He leans back in his chair. "What's the dress code for subterfuge?"

"I doubt it's black tie," Scully says. "I'm still wearing a suit."

"Come on, Scully, we're out of the office," he teases. "You've got an opportunity to break out the leather pants and the badass jacket."

She raises an eyebrow at him. "I was saving those for your birthday."

"That's better," he says immediately. 

"I thought you'd think so," she tells him.

They're at the appointed place at the appointed time. Mulder squints through his sunglasses up and down the street. "Tad O'Malley isn't very prompt."

"I imagine he's the sort of man who likes to make an entrance," Scully says, crossing her arms.

"What do you mean by that?" Mulder teases. "You thinking of anyone in particular?"

"Of course not," Scully demurs with a smile. She glances toward the Capitol. "You know, Mulder, I hate to admit it, but something about this feels good." She looks at him. "Most of it feels like we're being taken for a ride, but part of me welcomes this."

"I know what you mean," he says. 

She sighs. "Something else to discuss in therapy."

"The thrill of the chase is real, Scully," he says. "You can't blame your brain for enjoying the rush."

"I know," she says. "I just thought I'd...outgrown it, maybe."

"All the more reason some part of you craves it," he says. "Recapturing our misspent youth."

"I don't want to be most comfortable with my back against the wall," she says wryly. "And yet, here we are."

"With your back against the wall, you always know where you stand," he says, and a black limousine pulls up to the curb. The door opens and Tad O'Malley unfolds himself from the back seat. He's tall, even taller than he looked on television, and dressed like he's heading to a conference where he's the keynote speaker. Scully in her suit looks perfectly appropriate next to him. She shoots Mulder the tiniest smirk. He straightens his shoulders under his jacket and extends his hand.

"Fox Mulder," O'Malley says warmly, shaking Mulder's hand.

"That's quite a coincidence - that's my name," Mulder says just as warmly. "What are the odds?"

O'Malley makes a finger gun. "They told me you were sharp."

Mulder shrugs pleasantly. "It's a sharp world."

"Indeed it is," O'Malley says. He shakes Scully's hand. "Agent Scully."

"You make quite an entrance, Mr. O'Malley," she says. 

"She's shot men with less provocation," Mulder jokes. 

"Funny," O'Malley says. 

"Did they tell you I was funny?" Mulder asks.

"Of course," O'Malley says. "A regular one-man show. Join me for a little ride?"

Mulder exchanges sideways looks with Scully underneath their sunglasses. He expected a show, but the limo is a bit much. "Right here is fine. I'm afraid I'm not dressed for a limousine."

"Allow me my small precautions," O'Malley says, gesturing to the open door of the car. "Low-flying aircraft often use what they call 'dirtboxes' to record conversations that I would prefer stayed private."

Mulder glances at the sky. There's a kid with a kite and the faraway glint of a commercial jet, but no drones, nothing hovering. 

"Aircraft employed by whom?" Scully asks, arms still crossed. She leans back slightly on her heels. Mulder can see the glint of her ring on her left hand where it's tucked under her right arm. He wondered if she'd wear it. 

"I'm afraid I can only speculate," O'Malley says, as pleasantly as if they'd asked him what the weather was or whether the Cubs would win the World Series. "Shall we?"

He folds himself back into the car. Scully shrugs imperceptibly, looking at Mulder, and they follow O'Malley in, taking off their sunglasses. The interior of the car is dark, the windows tinted probably beyond the legal limit. The partition is up between the driver and the passenger compartment, but even if it's two against three, Mulder likes those odds. He and Scully are strapped and they're scrappy. They've handled worse than O'Malley.

The limo is suitably appointed, luxurious almost to the point of parody. O'Malley reaches into a high hat full of ice and pulls out of a bottle of champagne, offering it to them like a maitre d'. 

"None for me, thanks," Mulder says. "Scully?"

She shakes her head. "Mr. O'Malley, your precautions would seem to imply that you have enemies."

"Not of my own choosing, Dana," O'Malley says, his teeth bright as he smiles. He pops the cork and pours himself a glass of champagne. "Truth tellers will always face opposition, as I'm sure you know.

 

She inclines her head in what might be a nod. Mulder turns toward the window. The old habits come back fast; he can sense her next to him, poised to act if necessary. The city slides by outside and he presses the button to roll down the window. Nothing happens. 

"Your windows are broken," he says. "That's a shame. It's a little stuffy in here."

"Oh, those don't roll down by design," O'Malley says, that salesman's grin still wide. "I had the vehicle bulletproofed."

"Sure," Mulder says. "All those gun-toting liberals in the Whole Foods parking lot. What if there's a run on quinoa?"

"How can we help you, Mr. O'Malley?" Scully interrupts.

"I know the briefing you received was brief," O'Malley says, turning the charm on her again. "I also know you've been out of the game a long time. But I'm not some Johnny-come-lately to UFO-related phenomena. I'm a true believer like yourselves."

Scully ducks her head. "I wouldn't categorize myself as a true believer."

"Nor would I," Mulder says. "I want to believe, but actual concrete proof has been strangely hard to come by. Not that that matters much these days. Anyone can claim to be an expert on the internet."

"Sometimes they even give you your own show," O'Malley says, still genial. Mulder can feel the prickle of Scully's disapproval, but O'Malley rubs him the wrong way. "I guarantee if you still ran the X-Files, you'd have a platform bigger than you can imagine."

"Perhaps," Scully says. "But for better or for worse, Mr. O'Malley, those days are behind us. We're off the paranormal beat, so to speak."

"I could give that all back to you," O'Malley says, leaning forward. He's only looking at Scully now. She gazes back, that enigmatic mask in place. 

"Mr. O'Malley, how does a man with your conservative credentials come to consider himself a true believer in UFOs and 9/11 false flag conspiracies?"

O'Malley turns away from Scully, but Mulder can tell he doesn't have the man's full attention. "I take it you think my message is disingenuous?"

"Conspiracy sells," Mulder says. "It didn't in the 90s, but it's a hot property now. It pays for bulletproof limousines, among other things."

O'Malley's smile gets sharper. "You think I do it for the ratings?" 

Mulder shrugs. "I think you're The O'Reilly Factor with a shopworn little gimmick. I think you're 4chan with a cable contract."

O'Malley snorts. "What Bill O'Reilly knows about the truth could fill an eyedropper."

"At least we agree on that," Mulder says pleasantly. 

"Try me," O'Malley says.

Mulder taps one finger to his lip. "The Kelly Cahill incident."

"Kelly Cahill and her husband were driving home in Victoria, Australia when a craft appeared overhead. The Cahills lost an hour of time and Kelly was hospitalized with severe stomach pain after discovering a triangle-shaped mark near her navel," O'Malley recites. "As I said, my interest is real. What I need is your expertise."

"Our expertise for what?" Scully asks.

"I know what you've been through," O'Malley says. "Both of you."

"With all due respect, Mr. O'Malley," Scully says deliberately, "I doubt that's true."

"You're right," he says. "My apologies. I've heard the rumors. I've read the reports. I used to subscribe to The Lone Gunmen. Between your histories and your experience in law enforcement, you have the skills and knowledge I need."

"And why should we put those skills at your disposal?" Scully asks, ignoring the rest. 

O'Malley leans forward, the flute of champagne dangling from his fingers. "I'm rattling some pretty big cages in the intelligence community, but I'm prepared to go all in. I'm prepared to blow open maybe the most evil conspiracy the world has ever known."

"That's quite an assertion, given the history of the world," Scully returns cooly. "What's stopping you from exposing this conspiracy? I assume your following would support you."

"If I'm putting my ass out there, I need to know I've got backing I can depend on," O'Malley tells her. "My viewers are with me, but like I said, these are big cages, and the players in them don't care about ratings. They know how to make people disappear."

"So does David Blaine," Mulder murmurs.

O'Malley ignores him, still looking at Scully. "I've got something to show you...and someone."

The limousine glides out of the city as they sit in silence. O'Malley sips at his champagne and checks his phone. Mulder and Scully glance at each other. Mulder shrugs and takes out his own phone, scrolling through Twitter and checking his usual news sites. Scully looks out the window. After nearly four hours of turning onto increasingly narrow roads, the limo makes one last right onto a gravel path that reminds Mulder of the driveway of the house they lived in when they first moved back, before the case with the priest and the organ trafficking. They might as well be going nowhere. Google Maps tells him they're in or near Low Moor, although there's not any signal. It's as good as he's going to get. 

The limo pulls to a stop outside a small dingy house and Mulder hears the locks release. He opens the door and steps out, stretching. He offers Scully a hand out. She accepts it, surprising him, and slips her sunglasses back on. 

"Aliens couldn't find this place," she says, as if aliens didn't find Skyland Mountain. "How did you, Mr. O'Malley?"

O'Malley smirks. "A man in my position finds himself contacted by interesting strangers."

"I imagine that's true," Mulder murmurs, lurking at Scully's shoulder, in his best for-your-ears-only voice. O'Malley can probably hear, but even in broad daylight, he's always felt like he and Scully have a back channel, code talkers communicating sub rosa. They walk toward the house. Mulder tries not to saunter like he's in a Western, strolling up to the local bar. The door of the house swings open and he automatically reaches for his gun and stops himself. He sees Scully flinch the same way.

"Everyone," O'Malley says in a self-important voice, "meet Sveta."

Sveta lingers just outside the doorway. She is young and lovely, vulnerable-looking, her skin dark brown and her black hair falling around her face. She looks at them as if she is not quite sure whether to bolt. That's the usual attitude of the people they interview. Mulder relaxes slightly. She looks exactly like the person O'Malley might have chosen to be a smokescreen for his flimflam, but she's nervous too. Somehow, that's a comfort.

"Sveta, this is Dana Scully and Fox Mulder," O'Malley says. Everyone shakes hands. Sveta's only tremble a little. 

"Hello," Sveta says formally. Her voice doesn't shake. She's got a Midwestern standard accent. Not a lot of clues there. "Welcome to my home."

"Sveta suggested I call you," O'Malley tells them, standing next to her.

"You probably don't recognize me," Sveta says, looking at Mulder. "You interviewed me and my family when I was just a little girl. Right after my first abduction."

"I'm sorry," Mulder says. "I don't remember."

"We lost the majority of our files in a fire a number of years ago," Scully says. "Yours might have been among them."

"It's all right," Sveta says. "I'm sure you've been through a lot since then. Please, come in."

Scully looks at Mulder and follows Sveta in. Mulder follows her, his hand hovering near the small of her back. O'Malley brings up the rear, closing the door. Sveta pulls up her shirt. There are six circular scars around her navel. Scully leans forward. 

"May I?" she asks.

"Of course," Sveta says, and Scully peers closely at the marks. "These are from over twenty years. I've lost count of how many times I've been abducted."

"The scoop-mark scars are classic," O'Malley says. "As I'm sure you know. And then there are the memories implanted over actual memories to make the abductees forget."

"We call them screen memories," Sveta says.

"I'm familiar with the phenomenon," Scully says dryly. She straightens up slowly. 

"Things come back to me sometimes," Sveta tells her, letting her shirt fall back over her stomach. 

"What kind of things?" Scully asks. Mulder recognizes the gentleness in her voice. It's the one she always saved for the times they had to interrogate children. 

"Tests," Sveta says in a small voice. "Harvesting." She gestures toward her pelvis.

"Harvesting your ova?" Scully asks. 

Sveta looks at O'Malley. He nods. "Yes," she says. "They made me pregnant. But they took the babies before they were born. They tried to take the memories, but I remember. I remember the lights. I remember the way my body changed. They do everything through here." She points at the scars. 

"Tell them about your DNA, Sveta," O'Malley says in a hypnotic voice.

"I have alien DNA," Sveta says. "For sure. They take the babies out through here. They put the DNA in."

Scully glances at Mulder. "Have you had a doctor confirm that?"

"No," Sveta says. "I couldn't be sure that any doctor I visited wasn't one of Them." Mulder can hear the capital letter when she says it. Them. He used to talk the same way. 

"Is that something you could test, Scully?" he asks. 

Scully stares at him. He can sense her reticence. There is something childlike about Sveta, for all that she's an adult. One way or another, O'Malley is manipulating her. They have sacrificed enough children to this quest. He thinks back to the clones of his sister on the farm with the bees, the red-headed scientists in the facility where Scully's ova were stored. Emily. William. Uncounted others. 

At last, Scully nods. "I'll examine you myself, Sveta," she says. "If that's all right."

"Thank you," Sveta says fervently, her hands clasped. Mulder knows the light in her eyes. Sveta, at least, is a true believer.


	3. Chapter 3

They drop Scully and Sveta off at the hospital. Driving the limousine into the non-emergency lot at Our Lady of Sorrows feels even more pretentious than cruising the streets of DC, but at least Scully can still leverage a few privileges there. 

"Call me when you're done," Mulder says to Scully. They're standing in the corner of a hospital waiting room with their heads close together. It feels like old times. He's aware of how easy it would be to slide back into that life. There are some things worth salvaging from their days on the X-Files, but they've worked hard to rebuild the rest. 

"Where will you be?" she said, tipping her face up to his. It always made him want to kiss her. It still does.

"I don't know. He seems to have a plan." He jerks his head slightly at Tad O'Malley, who is staring into his phone again, conspicuous by the door. "Divide and conquer, right?"

"We're too smart for that, aren't we?" she murmurs, more than a hint of irony in his voice. "Mulder, he's got to have something he wants only you to see."

"Don't take the bait," he says. 

"You too," she says. He leans down and kisses her on the cheek, because what the hell, he can. Their attachment to each other is no secret. She closes her eyes briefly. "Be safe."

"You know me," he says, and winks.

"That's why I worry," she tells him. He chuckles as he turns away and strides back over to O'Malley. 

"I think they've got this," Mulder says.

"Good, because I've got something to show you," O'Malley says. "Something for the eyes of true believers."

"And seekers of truth?" Mulder asks.

"Them too." O'Malley nods at the limo. Let's get going."

It doesn't take that long to get there, or at least, not as long as it took to get to Low Moor. They stop at a gas station, and O'Malley reaches into a bag Mulder hadn't noticed and takes out a black hood.

"Top secret," O'Malley says. "I'm afraid I have to ask you to wear this."

"I'm not signing any dungeon-related paperwork," Mulder jokes. He reaches for the hood. "Allow me."

"I expected more resistance than that," O'Malley says.

"This isn't my first top-secret rodeo," Mulder says. "At least it's not a rubber gorilla mask."

"Didn't see that in any of the reports," O'Malley says.

Mulder slips the hood on. "Just don't break any fingers," he says. His voice is muffled by the cloth. It's hot, of course, but at least it's smooth, and it smells fine. Could be worse. He doesn't try to keep track of the twists and turns. There's no point. He just sits back and relaxes until the limo stops. O'Malley opens the door and then helps Mulder out. Mulder walks obediently wherever he's guided. He hears the creak of heavy metal doors opening.

"I want to prepare you," O'Malley says, a little too close, "for what you're about to see."

He pulls the hood from Mulder's head. Mulder blinks and looks around. It's what he expected: empty space, esoteric equipment, men in blue coats. A scientist sees them and starts walking toward them. Somehow there are rarely any women doing this kind of science. At this point, he's convinced it's because women have more sense than to fall for it. There's something recognizable, though. 

"A Faraday cage?" he says. "For what?"

"Do you know what an ARV is?" O'Malley asks in a smug voice.

"That's what you brought me here to see?" Mulder asks. 

O'Malley just smirks. "This is Garner," he says as the scientist arrives. "He'll walk you through the science." 

"Right this way, Mr. Mulder," Garner says, and Mulder and O'Malley follow him through a gate into the Faraday cage. There's a craft inside, triangular and glossy. It's surrounded by a team of scientists who are making adjustments and taking readings. The thing is covered with little panels. 

"That's an alien replica vehicle?" Mulder asks.

Garner nods. "Given your background, I would've thought you'd seen one before." 

Mulder gazes at it. "Seen the real thing, or as real as it gets. Seen some convincing fakes too. Never seen one like this."

"What we're showing you, we do at great risk," Garner tells him. "Colleagues have had labs burned to the ground and work destroyed by our own government."

"I know how that feels," Mulder says. "May I?"

"Of course," Garner says, inclining his head. "Be my guest."

Mulder reaches out to touch one of the panels. It's smooth under his fingertips, warm and vibrating gently. The craft hums slightly louder and begins to hover, rising until Mulder's hand slides off it. One of the scientists is controlling it, he's certain, but it is impressive. 

"It's running on toroidal energy," Garner tells him. "So-called zero-point energy. The energy of the universe."

Mulder imagines Scully would have something to say about that. "You're talking about free energy?"

"We've had it since the '40s," O'Malley interjects. "No fuel, no flame, no combustion."

"A simple electromagnetic field," Garner says, frowning very slightly. 

"Kept secret for seventy years while the world ran on petroleum," O'Malley says dramatically. "Oil companies making trillions. The Middle East tearing itself apart. For nothing." 

Mulder refrains from commenting on the quality of O'Malley's political analysis or the fact that O'Malley profits from every conflict. He gazes at the craft. Garner steps to his side.

"What I'm going to show you next is the most unbelievable part," Garner says. He's talking only to Mulder, Mulder thinks. O'Malley believes a little too much, tries to build hype around it when the facts are shocking enough. Garner thinks Mulder will see past the hyperbole to the actual miracle. Garner waves two fingers at one of the other scientists, who nods and flips a switch. The surface of the craft flickers and the air around it almost shimmers. When the glimmer clears, the craft has vanished. 

"Gravity warp drive," Mulder breaths, and Garner nods. "How?"

"Element 115," Garner says. "Ununpentium."

"Where did you get it?" Mulder asks. "We can create it under lab conditions, but not in any stable state, and not in any quantity."

"Salvaged," Garner says.

"From where?" Mulder asks.

"You know where," O'Malley says. "Roswell. 1947. Along with the original craft and its pilots."

"Of course," Mulder murmurs. 

"That's where it all came from," Garner says. Another flip of the switch and the ARV shimmers back into existence.

"It all comes back to Roswell," O'Malley says dramatically. "Every advance we've made. Every war we've fought. Do you see?"

"I do," Mulder says. It's the only answer O'Malley wants.

"We should be getting back," O'Malley says. "It's late."

"That sounds like my cue," Mulder says, and O'Malley hands him the hood. 

"You see how important my pursuit of the truth is," O'Malley says in the car, once he's freed Mulder from the hood again. 

"I see that it's made you rich," Mulder says. "Funny how much truth looks like conspiracy."

"You of all people would know," O'Malley says.

Mulder shrugs. "My pursuit of the truth has never been lucrative. I lost everything."

"And yet you fought to get it back," O'Malley says. "I respect the struggle."

Mulder smiles tightly. There's nothing to say to that. O'Malley cannot conceive of what he and Scully and their families have been through, to say nothing of the countless people he's interviewed with stories like Sveta's. Stories of pain and suffering. Stories of loss. Not clickbait to spook the masses and sell airtime at a steep markup to war profiteers. 

They drive back to collect Scully and Sveta from the hospital. Scully looks a little pinched and Sveta looks tired. Mulder gives Scully a questioning look and she shakes her head almost imperceptibly. _Later._

"I think we'll just get an Uber back to our car," Mulder says. "It's a long drive back to Low Moor. We don't want to keep you."

"Oh, I'm putting Sveta up in a hotel for the night," O'Malley says. "I've got a show to tape in the morning. Got to look fresh."

"I could stay if you will need me again, Dr. Scully," Sveta says.

Scully hesitates. "That might be wise."

"Don't worry about it," O'Malley says, patting Sveta on the shoulder. "It's my privilege to help her share her story with you." He hands Mulder a card. "This is my personal number, if you need me."

"Glad to hear it," Mulder says. "Good night, Sveta. Mr. O'Malley."

"Good night," Sveta says. 

It doesn't take long to find an Uber. Mulder and Scully climb inside and talk about nothing, as if their day hasn't been filled with abductees. Scully checks her email. Mulder reads a message board. Not until they get into their own car does she turn to him.

"Mulder, whoever that girl is, something has definitely happened to her. I don't know about alien DNA, but she's traumatized, and her body shows signs of something strange. She has stretch marks that could have resulted from a pregnancy. She also thinks she can read minds."

"Can she?" Mulder asks.

"She knew we're together," Scully says, "but that isn't a stretch. She said that you had been depressed in the past."

"That isn't a stretch either," Mulder jokes, merging into traffic.

"She said we had a child together," Scully says quietly.

Mulder says nothing for a moment. "I don't think that's a secret," he says finally. "We were being watched. Surely that information is out there."

"She doesn't seem like the kind of person who would have dug that deep," Scully says. 

"Did Byers?" Mulder asks.

Scully sighs. "She also claims to be telekinetic, but says she can't move things with her mind all the time."

"That's the rub, isn't it?" Mulder asks. "Can't get that Vegas gig bending spoons for the crowd unless you're consistent."

"She says it comes from the alien DNA," Scully says, and he knows she's thinking of William. 

"When will you have the results?" Mulder asks.

"Soon," Scully says. 

"Do you believe her?" Mulder asks. He pinches his lower lip between his fingers. God, he could go for some sunflower seeds.

"She seems to believe in her memories," Scully says. "I've seen strange things in the course of our work. Inexplicable things. I'm inclined to accept the possibility that something happened to her that has not been fully investigated."

"But not that it was aliens?" Mulder teases.

"It wasn't aliens who took me," she says. "At least, I don't think it was."

"There was a ship, Scully," Mulder says.

"There was a light," she says. "A light so blinding it could have obscured the less-than-extraterrestrial origins of an experimental plane. Whoever did what they did to me was human, Mulder, starting with Duane Barry and ending with the chip that CGB Spender gave you to put back in my neck."

"I remember chasing the train," he says. 

"Cassandra Spender," she reminds him. "If aliens took her, humans took her apart."

"She reminds me of Max Fenig," he says. "Sveta, I mean." 

"I agree," Scully says. 

They are silent for a moment, remembering Max.

"I don't trust Tad O'Malley," Scully says at last, as they're parking on their street.

"Nobody should," Mulder says, setting the emergency brake. Just one of the many precautions he takes these days. "He's a snake oil salesman peddling poison."

"He wants to divide us," she says. 

"I agree," Mulder says. "And I think you're right, he'll come to you next."

Scully makes a disgusted noise. 

"Not ready for the lifestyles of the rich and famous?" Mulder teases. "I'm sure he'll offer you all that and more."

"He's a sleazebag," Scully protests. "Handsome enough, but a sleazebag."

"And what do you say behind my back, Agent Scully?" Mulder asks, reaching for the door handle.

Her face softens. "I love you," she tells him. 

"The most inexplicable thing," he teases her, and they go into their house together.


	4. Chapter 4

It seems inevitable that Sveta and O'Malley will want to meet with them again, so Mulder short-circuits the whole thing. He's impatient in his old age. He was impatient in his youth. He texts O'Malley and asks for the name of Sveta's hotel. He's waiting in the lobby with a coffee when she comes down. Scully's back at Quantico. He expects O'Malley to find her in the morgue. A tv personality shouldn't have that kind of access and yet. O'Malley clearly knows which strings to pull. Sveta wanders down eventually, startled when he waves at her as she crosses the lobby with halting purpose in her step. She turns to him and wavers, like she's torn between wanting his help and fearing that no one can help. Another symptom for his checklist. He waits and finally she steps toward him. 

"Agent Mulder. Hello." 

"Hey," he says. "Dr. Scully asked me to check on you." It's as close to truth as he can get. 

"That's so kind," Sveta says. "I knew she was kind."

"Can I buy you a coffee?" Mulder asks.

"Thank you," Sveta says. They order and he pays, and they return to the table he claimed, his newspaper still open to the half-done crossword. 

"I had a few more questions for you myself," he says, after some small talk.

"I know," she tells him. "You can ask."

"There was a moment when we were talking to you about your abductions - about your pregnancies. We asked you a question and you looked at Mr. O'Malley before you answered. Why?"

She laced her fingers around the heat of her coffee cup. The barista hadn't even tried to get her name right. There was just a Z and a scribble. "Because it's not exactly the right question." 

"I'm sorry," Mulder said. "I don't understand."

"Mr. O'Malley told you it was aliens who took my babies," Sveta said. "But I don't believe it's aliens who are taking them."

"If aliens didn't abduct you, who did?" Mulder asks, already certain of the answer. 

Sveta's lip trembles and her eyes shine with tears that threaten to brim over. "It's difficult to talk about. The memories are difficult and the answers you want...they're dangerous, Mr. Mulder."

Twenty years ago, they would have sent a girl like her to distract him. Twenty years ago, it would have worked. He was a knight errant then, imagining he could save every damsel in distress. He's learned not to gallop off in all directions now, though he paid more than he should have for the lesson. 

"Everything stays between us, Sveta," he promises. "This isn't an interrogation. It's not on the record. It's just a conversation."

"The things I've experienced," she chokes out. "They've affected my entire life. They've made it impossible to have anything like a normal existence."

Mulder leans forward, reminded that therapists guide a conversation in much the same way interrogators do, and he's trained in both. "What are you afraid of, Sveta?"

"That it only gets worse," she says, and the tears spill over at last with perfect cinematic timing. He believes in her pain. He also believes in O'Malley's showmanship. 

"Who took your babies?" he asks in his most soothing, most confidential voice.

"Men," she says in a hoarse whisper. "They took me aboard their ships. Their human ships. I was afraid they would kill me if I ever told anyone the truth. When I saw Mr. O'Malley...he seemed like my best chance to find out what happened to me."

"You didn't see a doctor because doctors did this to you," Mulder says.

"Who could I trust?" Sveta asks, tears running down her cheeks again. "They would erase the evidence. Call me a liar. They're the liars." 

"You can trust me," Mulder says. "You can trust Dr. Scully. Our job is to protect you while we bring justice to those who harmed you."

"You work for the government," Sveta sniffles.

"Sometimes the best place to find the lies is inside the house," Mulder tells her. "They call me a liar too. They call Dr. Scully a liar." 

"How do you keep going?" Sveta asks. Her eyes are wet and she looks so young.

"One step at a time," Mulder says. "Right now, your trauma is an open wound. You'll heal with time. And you'll help us bring these men to justice."

"I want to believe you," Sveta says.

"Me too," Mulder sighs. 

He calls Scully from the car. She sounds distracted as she answers. 

 

"Is he there?" Mulder asks. "Why am I even asking, of course he's there."

"Of course, Assistant Director," she says. "Just finishing the preliminary notes. Let me wash up and I'll be right there." He hears her turn her face away from the speaker. "So sorry, but I've got a meeting."

"What a shame," says O'Malley's voice, distantly, muffled. "Let me know if you ever want to grab dinner sometime. I'm sure you're a veritable library of information. I'll bring the Scotch and you bring the weird science."

She laughs politely and he hears the door close behind her and then the sound of water running. "Sorry, Mulder. I pretended to hang up and put my phone in my pocket."

"At least you got offered dinner," Mulder says. "You going to go out with Tad O'Malley? The Tad O'Malley? He'll show you a good time."

"I'm married," she says casually but firmly, and his heart flipflops in his chest. "How was Sveta?" 

"Rattled," he says. "You were right. The same story about humans abducting her, and O'Malley just running with the notion of aliens. No one can really explain the craft without ET, but everything since then - all the work after the initial abduction, anyway - that's been us. Humans."

"Does that surprise you?" she says after a pause. 

"No," he says. "You?"

"No," she says. "I seem to recall you having a meltdown over the same revelation sometime circa 1998."

"I seem to recall you being next to Cassandra Spender as she vanished off a bridge the same year," he counters. 

She sighs. "There are days I don't regret getting that tattoo." 

"We've been chasing our tails for decades," he agrees. 

"They'll reopen the X-Files if he asks them to," she says. "You know they will. And then what will we do?"

"That was my next question," he says.

"We can't help her without access," Scully says. "But it's highly probable we can't help her at all. Ten year of unraveling the lies and we never got any definitive proof we could take to the public."

"You were right," he says. "We need help."

"He brought me a collection of photographs," she tells him. "He wanted me to tell me if they were alien hybrid children."

"Were they?" Mulder asks.

"I can't make that kind of designation based on a photograph," she says sternly, "but my medical opinion, which I shared with Mr. O'Malley, was that they shared a rare disease called microtia, which causes children to be born without the external apparatus of the ear. Rare, but not unearthly. Alien in appearance, but not in origin."

"Did he ask you about the X-Files?"

"Of course," she says. "He wanted to know if I missed the work."

Mulder taps on the steering wheel. "What did you tell him?" 

"I told him it was some of the most intense and challenging work I'd ever done," she says. "I told him I thought I had felt most alive when you and I were working together."

He swallowed against the lump in his throat. "Laying it on thick, Dr. Scully."

"I told him that working with you had led to the most intense and challenging and impossible relationship of my life," she says. "And after all of that, he still tried to ask me out."

"Intense and challenging and impossible aren't necessarily positive," Mulder tells her. "You left an opening."

"He wasn't really listening," Scully says. "But you know I love a challenge, Mulder."

"Yes, you do," he says. 

"We need to talk to Skinner," she says.

"I'm on it," he tells her, and hangs up.

Skinner meets them after hours at the elevator. They all ride down together. Scully kissed Skinner in this elevator once, Mulder seems to remember, but he only heard about it later from the security guard watching the video feed. He doesn't remember much from that particular adventure anyway, except kissing whoever Scully was in 1939 and getting a gaudy bruise for it. They don't talk on the way to the basement. The place smells the same. The office still has pencils in the ceiling. Somebody's taken the trouble to gut and repaint the place, and it still has pencils in the ceiling. 

"Where are the files?" Scully asks.

"I don't know," Skinner says, but he looks away as he says it. Play the game, Mulder thinks, and they'll find out later.

"You said no one had been down here, that it hadn't been touched," he says, letting a little anger color his voice. Skinner will forgive him. They all have to play their parts. New paint means new bugs.

"Not since you and Agent Scully left the Bureau," Skinner says.

"We're back now," Mulder tells him.

"You certainly are," Skinner says. "As of this morning, you're reassigned to the X-Files, pending approval."

"Whose approval?" Scully asks.

"It's above my pay grade," Skinner says. 

"We need access," Mulder says, "and we need backup. We need a staff. If the X-Files are so important, there should be more than two agents."

"I'll see what I can do," Skinner mumbles. "Your mysterious benefactors seem willing to allocate whatever resources are deemed necessary."

"Who do you take orders from, sir?" Scully asks sharply. 

"All you need to know is that I'm looking out for you," Skinner says dismissively. "I've always looked out for you."

"We've been led through one dark alley after another, and all of them dead ends," Mulder says. "What makes this time different?"

"The world is different," Skinner says. "Since 9/11, this country has taken a very big turn in a very strange direction. I'm not the only one who wished you were still down here. You've got friends in high places."

"All the better to spy on us," Scully says. 

"The danger is real," Skinner tells her, "but the opportunities are too. You can do something about it, agents. Together. You may be the only ones left who can."

"Do we have a choice?" Scully asks. She's gotten better at lying in the intervening years. Mulder isn't certain whether he should be grateful for that.

"Do you ever?" Skinner says.

"We'll need desks," Mulder says. "And a new poster."

"I'll see what I can requisition," Skinner tells him. "Welcome home, agents."

Scully goes back to the hospital after they finish the paperwork, murmuring about test results. Mulder doesn't mind. He has his own contacts, even after fourteen years out of the game. Tad O'Malley isn't the only one with a fan base, not that he likes to think about his informants that way. It's evening by the time he gets to the Mall, but he enjoys the walk. He's missed working down here: the bustle and the restaurants, the museums and the tourists. He walks toward the Washington Monument. 

"Is the hour absolutely necessary?" says a voice at his shoulder. "I had dinner reservations."

"It was important that I see you," Mulder tells him. 

"We made an agreement about our meeting in unsecured environments," grumbles the doctor. Apparently working in Area 51 makes a person paranoid forever. He can relate to that. He's just lucky that anyone who was in Roswell when the crash handed is willing to speak to him. 

"I can't provide a high-security cordon like your former establishment," Mulder jokes. "For one thing, I don't have a couple hundred square miles of desert to drop the facility in the middle of or a guard to patrol the perimeter. But anyone who's out here isn't looking at us. I called you because you said if I ever put the pieces together, you would confirm."

"And have you put them together?" the doctor asks. 

"I've met someone," Mulder hedges. "I've seen something."

"You weren't even close before," the doctor scoffs. "Warring aliens lighting each other on fire. Weaponized bees. Supersoldiers. Every distraction they organized for you, you swallowed hook, line, and sinker."

"I was being cleverly manipulated," Mulder says in a tone even he hears as sulky. "I admit to a certain credulousness in my youth."

"And what brings this new clarity?" the doctor asks. 

"I saw an ARV running on free energy," Mulder tells him. "I touched it. I saw it disappear."

"That's what they all seem to do," the doctor grumbles.

"Their scientists said the materials were salvaged from Roswell." Mulder paces back and forth. "The technology exists. And it's been in use, being used on humans, for human testing that has been consistently misreported as alien abductions."

"So you believe you know how," the doctor muses.

"Yes," Mulder says. "And I think I know why."

"That 'why' is more complicated than you may ever know, Mr. Mulder," the doctor tells him.

"I've heard that a lot over the years," Mulder says. "Try me. Sixty years ago, we were warned about the military-industrial complex gathering too much power. Now alien technology is being used against us. Not by aliens or with aliens as I believed in the past, but by a venal conspiracy of men against humanity."

"You're wasting my time," the old man said dismissively, turning away. "There's always a bad man in the shadows or a monster under the bed."

"What are the tests for?" Mulder demands. "The babies? The samples? The implanted DNA?"

The doctor squints as he steps under the streetlight. "You tell me, Mr. Mulder."

"Ten years ago you came to me, saying you couldn't take your secrets to your grave, that you couldn't live with it." Mulder steps into the doctor's personal space. 

The doctor sighs. "I"m a man of medicine. I didn't know how my work would be used. The lies are so great, Mr. Mulder. I imagined that I would come forward, but I knew that the truth must be unassailable. I am not sure that kind of truth exists anymore."

"Let me tell the world," Mulder tells him.

"They'll make a mockery of us," the doctor says sadly. "They'll pillory us in the town square." 

"So what else is new," Mulder says. "I've been a punching bag before. I can take it."

"These men are capable of knocking you out," the doctor says. "You're nearly there. You're close." He turns away. "You listen to me because I was there in Roswell, but Roswell has become a smokescreen."

"So I've been told," Mulder says to himself. He wonders when all the informants began to sound the same. They promise him the truth but only speak in riddles. They offer him the world, but won't give him the map. He'd have better luck with a sphinx, and she'd probably be more coherent. 

He goes home. That, at least, is new, that after submerging himself for hours in the kind of paranoia his younger self lived and breathed, he gets to emerge from it and go home to spend his life with Scully.

She's reheated the chili and she's sitting at the table in the kitchen, stirring sour cream into her bowl. "I wasn't sure when you'd be home," she says. 

"Sorry," he says. "I meant to text you, but I had to talk to someone."

"Just like old times," she says.

"Except I get to come home to you," he says, and leans down to kiss her. "How were the test results?"

"Strange," she says. 

"But you expected that," he says, ladling chili into a bowl and joining her at the table. "Didn't you?"

"They're in line with the results from around the time of my cancer," she tells him. 

"You're disappointed," he says. 

"I don't know what I was thinking," she says, dropping her spoon. "I thought maybe the chip had removed the junk DNA, or that something about the pregnancy had. Dr. Parenti told me that all of my test results were normal. But I suppose he lied about almost everything."  
He aches for her, thinking of her going through all of that alone. “I’m sorry, Scully.”  
She lifts one shoulder. It isn’t quite a shrug. “I never quite learned to trust no one.”  
"And Sveta's results?"

"Like mine," she said. "Anomalous. Like purity control, all those years ago, and all those women in Pennsylvania." She looks at him across the table and reaches for his hand. "I wish it weren't always so personal."

"Me too," he says. 

"Do you still believe we can save the world?" she asks, her voice just slightly shaky. 

"I want to believe," he tells her.

"So do I," she says. "I badly want to believe that there is some point to all of this, if we take up this cause again. We've come so far, Mulder."

"One foot in front of the other," he says. "That's how you walk through the desert, Scully. Or the fire." 

"It's always worked for us," she says, smiling at him. "I just hope that Sveta's all right. I don't trust O'Malley's intentions. She's vulnerable. She wants answers as badly as I do. I know what that can do to a person."

Mulder sighs. "He'll contact us again. He's had his chance to influence us separately. Do we play along, pretending to be true believers, or do we reject his tangled web of conspiracy theories so flimsy and fringe even a teenager would be ashamed to believe it?"

"To be fair to teenagers, they're ashamed of most things," Scully murmurs. "It is the part you were born to play."

"We all have our faith, Scully," he jokes. "Our belief in things unseen."

"I know," she says.


	5. Chapter 5

It's not a surprise the next day when they emerge from the Hoover Building, where they've been supervising the setup of all of the new computers, to see Tad O'Malley's gleaming black limo. The door opens. They get in. 

"Glad we caught you, agents," O'Malley says with a grin. 

"We're not hard to track down," Mulder says. 

"It's the chip in my neck," Scully says dryly, and Mulder isn't sure he's ever heard her joke about it before. But maybe she's spitting into the wind too, reminded of how whoever is behind all this has tampered with her at a molecular level. He admits it is easy to direct (or misdirect) that frustration at Tad O'Malley. 

"Hi," Sveta says, waving at them from across the car. O'Malley hasn't brought out the champagne this time, but she's clutching a bottle of Perrier. 

Mulder leans back against the leather seat. The car certainly is plush. The perks of selling out, he imagines. 

"I didn't think you'd come, Agent Scully," O'Malley says. "After all, your work is so important. So I took the liberty of coming to you." He opens a small fridge concealed under the seat. "Perrier?"

"Thank you," Scully says, accepting a bottle. "What are you doing here, Mr. O'Malley?"

"Exposing a global conspiracy that's crushing the soul of America," O'Malley declares. "Agent Mulder knows what I'm talking about."

"You're ready to make a move?" Mulder asks.

"The Truth Squad with Tad O'Malley with a world exclusive," O'Malley tells him. "The story to end all stories." 

"Why don't you give us a preview?" Scully says, settling into her seat. 

O'Malley leaned forward. "We begin with a war. The Civil War. The United States splits in two. A new government forms. They mint their own currency. They make their own laws."

"They perpetuate the enslavement and genocide of millions of people," Scully murmurs. 

"That enslavement creates the haves and the have-nots. And the halves begin to believe, to truly believe, that they are above the law. That they can meddle with the fates and lives of people they start to consider subhuman: black, white, Native American, and everyone else. An experimental program to create a better person through a variety of methods, including surgical intervention and selective breeding."

Sveta shivers. Scully looks at her compassionately. She reaches for Sveta's hand. 

O'Malley doesn't seem to notice their discomfort. "The shadow government continues to exist after the war. The genetic engineering of a superior human continues in the shadows of the shadow. And they have other secrets."

"It all sounds like a ghost story," Scully says in that even voice that immediately sends Mulder into full alert. "Designed to scare children."

"Children should be afraid," O'Malley tells her. 

"Everyone should," Mulder says, and he sees the shiver in her eyelid that means she's trying not to roll her eyes at him. "It's a conspiracy bigger and more secret than the Manhattan Project, with tentacles reaching back into the very roots of America."

"The metaphor is mixed," Scully says.

"All the more apt," Mulder tells her. "The Civil War set the stage and World War I gave us access to new technologies, but it wasn't until victories in Europe and Japan that the drama really ratcheted up for the rest of the world."

"Political and economic conditions became perfect for execution of the larger plan," O'Malley declared. "The success of the program in the former Confederate states had spread to the re-United States. Agents of the conspiracy, swearing their allegiance to President Grant, had infiltrated the highest levels of government. World War I and World War II had weakened the European powers that might have held the US in check. As it was, they were delighted to accept the offer of help from the United States, and if it came with a price, they were happy to pay it. Their scientists began working with our scientists. The project stretched those insidious tentacles to grasp the entire globe."

Mulder grins. This is his wheelhouse. Even as much as he's been jerked around and lost his faith, it's still exhilarating to put together the pieces of the puzzle he worked at for half his life. "Paper Clip. Experiments in the aftermath of the atomic bombings. The crash at Roswell leading to cannibalized alien technology and cannibalized alien corpses, all resources that furthered the project." 

O'Malley breaks in. "The bomb was the latest threat of extinction, but not the first. The energy of the explosions acted as transducers, creating wormholes that drew in alien ships just like the one that crashed at Roswell, ships that ran using electro-gravitic propulsion. Sacrificing those alien lives with their extraterrestrial biology and their advanced technology delayed our self-immolation on the altar of democracy."

"World leaders signed secret memos directing scientific stuff of alien technology and biochemistry," Mulder puts in. "All in the name of furthering the project, creating a new species that could survive alien invasion or whatever else might wipe us out. Classified studies were done at military installations, extracting alien tissue. S4, Groom Lake, Wright Patterson, and Dulce: all part of a network of black sites where tests were conducted using advanced alien technology recovered from the ships." He glances at Sveta. She has one hand over her mouth. "Tests including human hybridization through gene editing and forced implantation of the resulting embryos in unsuspecting human subjects." He swallows and tries not to look at Scully, but can't help meeting her eyes. "Embryos with extraterrestrial DNA." 

Sveta gasps. "Why do such a thing and lie about it? Our own government?"

"Aliens aside," Scully says, "the American government has conducted experiments on unsuspecting populations as a matter of policy. The Tuskegee Syphilis Study lasted for years beyond the point where they could have cured the patients. The scientists in charge chose not to inform their subjects because they were African-American. They let them die horrible, preventable deaths, claiming it was all in the name of science. Genetic material was extracted from a sample of a tumor taken from a black woman named Henrietta Lacks and used without her consent or her family's. Other people have been sterilized against their will, or stolen from their families. I doubt we'll ever understand the full extent of the violence done to the indigenous peoples of the Americas." She exhales loudly. "While I cannot substantiate all of Agent Mulder's claims, I have found evidence of anomalous genetic material being implanted or otherwise introduced into the DNA of numerous subjects, including myself. And you."

"What are they trying to do?" Sveta asks.

"That's the missing piece," Mulder tells her. "We've learned so much, but some part of this eludes us."

"But it's not hard to imagine," O'Malley breaks in. "A government hiding, no, hoarding alien technology for seventy years, at the potential expense of all human life and the future of the planet. A government inside the government, secretly preparing for more than a hundred years for the long-awaited event."

"The takeover of America," Mulder says, feeling sick to his stomach.

"And then the world itself," O'Malley says with an almost religious fervor. "By any means necessary, however violent or cruel. Severe drought brought on by weather wars conducted secretly using aerial contaminants distributed via chemtrails and high-altitude electromagnetic waves. Perpetual war waged overseas, a drain on our resources and our energy engineered by politicians to create problem-reaction-solution scenarios to distract, enrage, and enslave American citizens at home with tools like the Patriot Act, the National Defense Authorization Act, and pure old-fashioned jingoism, abridging the Constitution and its promised freedoms in the name of national security. Every dissident, every minority: a terrorist in situ. Vietnam, but this time they're doing it right."

"Militarize the police forces," Mulder says slowly. "Martial law. FEMA building prison camps. Mercenaries fighting under our flag, but not under our orders."

"The corporate takeover of food and agriculture," O'Malley says smugly. "It's already begun. Monsanto. Dicamba. They've got pharmaceuticals and healthcare in their pocket too. An insurrection of men and women with clandestine agendas to dull, sicken, terrify, and control a populace already consumed by consumerism."

Mulder leans over to Scully. "I didn't really like Wall-E," he whispers. She shakes her head at him.

"A government that taps your phone, collects your data, and monitors your whereabouts with impunity," O'Malley says with a flourish. "A government preparing to use that data against you when it strikes and the final takeover begins."

Mulder nods slowly. There is a seed of truth in O'Malley's conspiracy-addled rant. He's been seeking it long enough to know it when he sees it. The nation is poised on a precipice. All the rest of it is lies, smoke and mirrors, a way to turn the paranoid and the credulous into easy money. But somewhere, under eighty mattress-thick layers of right-wing garbage, is a pea-sized truth, and he's the princess shifting uncomfortably. 

"The takeover of America?" Scully asks.

O'Malley leans forward. "By a well-oiled and well-armed multinational group of elites that will cull, kill, and subjugate."

"Happening as we sit here in this car," Scully says.

"It's happening all around us," O'Malley tells her.

"It's been happening for years," Mulder murmurs. "The other shoe waiting to drop."

"It'll probably start on a Friday," O'Malley says. "The banks will announce a security action necessitating that their computers go offline all weekend."

"Digital money will disappear," he says.

Sveta looks startled. "They can just steal your money?" Scully squeezes her hand.

"While the banks are vulnerable, they'll detonate strategic electromagnetic pulse bombs to knock out major grids. Traffic lights, security systems, everything: gone. Hospitals will be on backup generators indefinitely. It will seem like an attack on America by terrorists or Russia."

"Or a simulated alien invasion featuring alien replica vehicles already in use," Mulder murmurs. 

"An alien invasion of the U.S.?" Scully says.

"The Russians tried it in '47," Mulder reminds her. "Or they took credit for it, anyway."

"They'll take more than credit this time," O'Malley says. "This goes worldwide. Everything that has happened for the past seventy years has been engineered by this global conspiracy, these shadow players. The structures they've built are designed to crumble, tearing America apart at the seams. They'll build a new world on the ruins of our current one. It will happen soon, and it will happen fast." 

Scully shakes her head. "You can't say these things," she tells O'Malley.

"I'm gonna say them tomorrow," O'Malley says with an almost religious fervor in his voice. 

Scully frowns. "It's fearmongering, isolationist techno-paranoia so bogus and dangerous and stupid that it borders on treason. Saying these things would be incredibly irresponsible." 

"I hate to say this, Scully, but if this is true, it would be irresponsible not to say it," Mulder says reluctantly. 

"If it's the truth," Sveta says, "you have to say it." 

"It's not the truth," Scully says.

O'Malley grins that smarmy grin. "Agent Scully, with all due respect, I don't think you know what the truth is."

"The only thing I don't know is where you're taking us," Scully says, ice in her voice. "Except on a wild goose chase."

"It's lunchtime," O'Malley says. "I thought you might want something to eat." 

It's clear from the look Scully gives him that there is a long, long list of people she would rather have lunch with before she deigned to have lunch with Tad O'Malley. In fact, it might be approaching seven billion people long. 

"I think what Agent Scully is trying to convey is that we've got to decline your invitation," Mulder says.

"You believe me," O'Malley says to Mulder with certainty.

Mulder looks at Scully. She looks back at him, her eyes tight just at the corners. "I might have, back in the day. My doctor says paranoia is bad for me." 

O'Malley sits back, disappointed. Scully's shoulders loosen. She glances at him and there's something between approval and gratitude in her eyes. He smiles at her. 

There's a pinging noise. Scully checks her email on her phone. Her brow creases. She scrolls through something, then flicks back to the top and reads through it again. "This is strange."

"What?" Mulder leans over. 

"Sveta, the lab retested your samples. A new tech was running the machines, and a number of test results were compromised. In fact, they retested your samples twice to be sure. Your DNA shows no anomalies." Scully looks up. "Whatever's been done to you, it had nothing to do with this project."

"Nothing?" Sveta and O'Malley ask at the same time.

"That can't be right," O'Malley says. "Retest her." 

"I don't want to be tested again," Sveta says. 

"You're my evidence," O'Malley tells her angrily. "You have to."

"She doesn't have to do anything," Scully tells him. "She's under our protection now."

"We'll see about that," O'Malley says. He presses a button. The driver pulls over. He opens the door. "Goodbye, agents. Goodbye, Sveta."

"What will you do?" Sveta asks him as she climbs out of the car. 

"I'll do what I do," O'Malley says. "I'll tell the truth."

The car door slams shut.

Truth Squad with Tad O'Malley the next day is a runaway hit: high ratings, viral content, memes, gifs, and a media uproar. "I promised you the truth today, but that truth has come under assault," O'Malley says, looking into the camera, and they roll footage of Sveta confessing to reporters, accusing him of telling lies.

"I am so sorry if I misled anyone," she says tearfully, wringing her hands in front of her.

"They get her?" Mulder asks.

"She should be safe," Scully tells him. "They'll work on relocating her."

"Material witness?" Mulder asks. "That's a bit of a stretch."

"It won't be by the time all of this is over," Scully says grimly. "I went to the hospital to collect the samples and had our labs run them again."

"And?" Mulder says.

"Sveta and I share a lot," Scully says. "Including anomalous genetic material."

"O'Malley must be furious," Mulder says, propping his hands on his hips as he thinks.

"Rumor is they're going to pull the plug," Scully says. "No more truth, no more Squad."

"To his followers, that'll feel like a sign," Mulder says. "A shot fired across their bows."

Scully shrugs. "Damned if you do, damned if you don't. Either we embolden a liar, or we enrage his base." 

"Politics have never been our strong suit," Mulder says. "You know, there's something called the Venus Syndrome."

"The plant, the planet, or something else I'm afraid to ask about?" Scully asks.

"The planet," Mulder says. "It's a runaway global warming scenario that leads us to the brink of the Sixth Extinction. Those with the means will prepare to move off the planet into space, which will have already been weaponized against the poor, huddled masses of humanity that haven't been exterminated by the über-violent fascist elites. If you believe in that kind of thing."

"Honestly, these days it sounds almost plausible," Scully tells him, leaning on one of the desks. Whoever has funded the untimely revival of the X-Files has been generous: they have two normal desks and four standing desks scattered around the office. It's much too flexible a workspace for two people. 

Their phones go off almost in unison. They both reach for them.

"Skinner," Scully says.

"Skinner," Mulder confirms. He reads the message: Situation critical. Need to see you both ASAP. 

They look at each other. 

"Scully, are you ready for this?" Mulder asks.

"I don't know there's a choice," she says, but she sounds fierce and proud.

There are wheels turning somewhere. He can almost hear the gears of the world grinding. They won't get caught in the teeth this time, won't get torn apart. Whoever is behind everything they've been through will be exposed, finally and totally, brought to light. They'll have to open the wound to clean it out, but that's all right. They've finally learned how to heal. He opens the door for her and they stride toward the elevator together.


End file.
